Category: Food

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Banquets and Donkey Skin

Nick and Su-Chen whipped up a royal feast last night at Nick and Jeff’s loft in Oakland. I didn’t realize that there were going to be eight courses. I was pretty full after the second, but the flavors were so delightful, I yielded to dish after dish, and did my best to not explode. The courses began with a cucumber and marinated pork appetizer, then crisp asparagus in a light soy sauce, crab cakes served over an Asian version of succotash, whole shrimp, cooked quickly over a hot flame in a ginger garlic pepper sauce, salmon cooked in miso with cucumbers again and toasted sesame seeds, anise-flavored pork with bok choy, a light broth with tofu and tomatoes, and then a kind-of flan for dessert. A lot of the local Hairy Bodies alumni were present, including Big Chrissy, Dean the model and Dean the artist, and his charming BF Doug, and Ruth and her hubby, John. As soon as we realized that John had helped design the G4 titanium laptop we all squirmed our way onto his discount waiting list. I felt compelled to give him a little grief about the hinges. A full course or two was spent talking about heat sinks. The dishes stopped coming around midnight, and after a few games of pool, where Dean won every game by default, we toddled home, fat shadows of our former selves.

Today I saw Jacques Demy’s Donkey Skin, with Catherine Deneuve and Jean Marais, from 1970. The totally delightful fairy tale opens with Queen Catherine Deneuve on her deathbed, forcing King Jean Marais (Bête of Beauty and the Beast) to promise to wed only someone prettier than she to secure a male heir to the throne after she dies. Well, wouldn’t you know it, but the only girl prettier than the queen is her daughter, also played by Catherine Deneuve, so after her death, the King decides to marry her! The fairy godmother intervenes and disguises Princess Catherine in the skin of a donkey (that pooped gems), and whisks her away to another kingdom, where she eventually is found by the local Prince, after baking him a “love” cake and slipping her tiny ring into the batter, a ring so tiny that it will only fit on her slender finger. Borrowing from Cinderella, the Prince assembles all the bachelorettes in the kingdom to try on the ring, lining them up in order from Princess to “unemployed,” and eventually on down to our girl with the donkey skin. Following their wedding, King Marais shows up in a helicopter with his new bride, yes, you guessed it, the Fairy Godmother, and everything’s great.

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Good Friday With the Komaters

Reese is flying to Paris Tuesday with Bob, so I got my family together to throw him a Bon Voyage/Good Friday party last night. Ever since the fishsticks and macaroni-&-cheese of Good Fridays past, I’ve eaten fish on Good Friday. It’s not an act that’s associated anymore with a particular belief system. I can’t even remember if it was a venial or mortal sin to eat meat on Good Friday, I just remember the tradition. I made a kind of cioppino, but put a French spin on it by adding potatoes. It was very yummy. June made a nice citrus and mango salad that complimented the stew with sweet acidity, and then Didi served us a berrry pie for dessert. We all drank too much, just like good Catholics.
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A Play, an Exhibition, a Movie, the Daves, and Alicia Finally Leaves

I saw Caroline, or Change at the Curran last weekend with my fellow Underbears, BC and D. Caroline, the maid, is allowed to keep the change that she finds in the pants pockets of the boy whose family she works for, when doing laundry. The tension, excitement, and apprehension that result are given context in the racial turbulence of the 60’s and the emotional conflicts and changing dynamics within the families. It’s an amazing play, with clever lyrics, beautifully sung music, and a pared-down dazzling production. The Underbears say “3 paws up!”

The Hairy Bodies show is coming together nicely, with dynamite pieces by Nayland, Nick, Dean Smith, and BC, a sumptuous video by Ruth, a really strange and disturbing installation by Su-Chen, and my own first dive into video. My videos are going to be static, and sculptural, jiggling accompaniments to my photographs. Please come to the opening next Friday!

Last night I saw Million dollar Baby, the new Clint Eastwood flick. I really like his films. He’s like old Hollywood, well, his is old Hollywood. There’s no dazzle, or gimmickry, just straightforward storytelling. And nothing new in the storytelling department either. The story was almost mythic, very lyrical and allegorical. And Hilary Swank gives an amazing performance, very modulated, yet energetic and extremely moving.

The Daves are here, the Daves are here! Dave and Dave are in the final stages of their 2004-5 Western Hemisphere Tour, staying with BC. We were all treated to a delightful dinner at Steve and Jack’s a few nights ago. I gained back all of my recently shed poundage in an intimate bonding with their delectable lasagna. I could have had a third slice if my inner Thighmaster had been a little more intoxicated. I contributed my first tarte tatin, actually a pear tarte tatin, to the dinner. It worked! nicely caramelized and full of pear-ness. I was given the opportunity to see why such a thing tastes so good–it’s like HALF butter!

Alicia, my delightfully irresponsible houseguest, has flown back to Telluride, and Les, after a yummy dim sum brunch, back to Massachusetts. Alicia was going to stay just a night, but I made her a big dinner when she arrived and breakfast the next morning, so she decided to stay for three more days of pampering and feeding. She told me of her recent, well, eight or so years ago, trip to some Caribbean island, where she saw an ad for a hostess on a ship, and ditched her boyfriend and went to work on a boat for three months. Her work consisted of “making” cereal for breakfast and tuna fish sandwiches for lunch everyday. The captain made dinner, which consisted of the day’s catch. For this she was paid $500 a week. The owner took his clothes off and swung his willy in circles for her, demanding that she, too take her clothes off when at sea. She didn’t tell me if she had to swing anything, too. The captain asked Alicia what she was into. She said yoga, art, meditation–what are you into? “Masturbation.” Which, she says, he did many times a day, at sea and on land, wherever a closet or bush was to be had. She’s currently juggling 2 lovers–one the father of her child, the other a poor carpenter who “loaves me, Chrees!” She’s still a knockout at 44, with gorgeous gray streaks in her long brown hair. Her utter devotion to her self, though, is challenging to be around for more than a few days.

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Christmas, Crabs and Pussies

I love the idea of having a chopped down tree in the house, I love how it smells, and all the shoppers descending upon my neighborhood in their red felt hats, and the short days and long snuggly nights, and eggnog, Bobbie Helms and Brenda Lee, Garry’s latkes… Last year Ted was totally against Christmas. We had a fight when I tried to give him a present. We compromised when I told him that I had bought him a second gift–I honored his tradition by not giving him the alleged second one, and he honored mine by accepting the first. Bob was so freaked out by my wanting a tree, no not a tree, a representation of the triumph of the Christians, that I suggested we put a golden calf on top. (We even made a tangerine liqueur that year that we called “Golden Calf: The Drink the Israelites Worshipped” that we handed out as Christmas presents.) No more such boyfriends. My favorite Christmas, though, was with Bob in Florence, opening the windows of Palazzo Frescobaldi in the freezing winter to hear the town’s bells at midnight, just magical. Earlier we went all the way across town to buy an Iris Cake, supposedly a Christmas favorite of the Florentines, and ate the dry crumbly tasteless confection in our freezing romantic palazzo while the bells clattered away.

The season thus far has been a good one. Geoff’s intimate potluck, Garry’s greasy latke party, cooking crabs with D and BC, the annual trip to visit Big Chris’s family in Illinois… This time there was snow on the ground when we arrived, but it all melted in a few days. Having grown up in the south, I go wild in the snow, wanting to shovel all the neighbors driveways, and like a dog at the ocean, running around until I’m dragged into the house blue and shivering. Chris’ mom and sisters treated us to many homey delights, such as grilled cheese sammies, chili with real meat, cookies, lasagna, and Whitey’s malts. We spent a few days in Chicago with Chris’s dad, Stephanie. The new Millennium Park is a wonderful new public space, with a large polished steel bean-shaped sculpture by Anish Kapoor, pedestrian bridge and concert hall by Frank Gehry, and a whimsical and monolithic fountain designed by Jaume Plensa, consisting of 2 large video portraits of people smiling, facing each other across a shallow reflecting pool, water splurting down occasionally from their open mouths. One evening Stephanie’s friend Deirdre treated us to an evening at her “club.” We didn’t find out until we got there, in our blue jeans, our winter coats standing in briefly for dinner jackets, that the “Cliff Dwellers Club” is a swank private club founded in 1907 for people interested in the arts–like Roger Ebert, who’s a member.  That kind of artist. Chris and I were the only ones who looked like we were involved in the making of art, the others all looked like lawyers. The club was hosting an exhibition of just awful paintings, but we had a nice dinner on the top floor of a building with expansive windows overlooking the Art Institute, the Field Museum and Millennium Park. Deirdre was a male economist and historian once, and became a female one about 7 years ago. She’s written many interesting books in her field, as well as a fascinating book about her experience becoming a woman, called Crossing: A Memoir.

Reading Deirdre’s revealing book, in many ways a man’s perspective on an idealized and regressive womanhood, has brought up far more questions for me than answers. I’ve met only a few transgendered people, including Chris’ dad, with whom I’ve become quite close. As a creator of things myself, I’m interested in how one can create a new identity and gender, and am curious about what it’s all about. I’ve noticed that both Steph and Deirdre’s awareness of their feminine side developed alongside a fetishistic relation to women’s clothes. This is what intrigues me: both say that gender and sexuality are completely unrelated for them, yet Deirdre describes how her cross-dressing often culminated in a masturbatory event. Is the sexual desire for another directed toward the self? That is, the “other” that the self has transformed into? Neither woman seems particularly interested in sex anymore (they’re both in their 60’s, so maybe it’s an age thing), but I think if I suddenly had a pussy, I’d be using it.

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Can’t Sleep

I can’t sleep. I immediately think of that awful trailer for the new Christian Bale movie, where if he were any skinnier he’d be a ghost, the trailer that relates the entire story in 10 gruelling minutes, and then tells you again that if he were any skinnier he’d be a ghost. I’ll try to do that.

I had dinner with Rocco Pizzoferrato tonight at Delfina. It was an amazing meal. Actually it was the equivalent of an amazing two meals. An all-too brief sensual highlight was the tagliatelle in a butter and cream sauce with truffles shaved over the top. The beauty for me of Italian food is the melding of a few simple ingredients to stimulate the senses into an awareness of the joy and wonder of the coming together of those ingredients. The truffles were like the musty underwear of some beautiful and tragic Greek hero. I wanted to lick my plate, and shed a silent tear as they tore it away from me.

There’s a new show that I put up a few days ago at Marjorie Wood–a wacky video by Connie Harris, accompanied by a short story by On Our Back editor Diana Cage. Coco says check it out, culture vultures. You can look at art, and don’t have to leave your laptops!

Speaking of laptops, remember that I broke mine a while ago? Well, instead of paying Apple $1,400 to fix it (the Apple Associate told me on the phone, “Honey, just buy a new one”), or buying a new one (my idea of selling things on eBay to finance the transaction ended up in me acquiring all sorts of expensive new decorative items for the house–give me the cow and I’ll buy expensive beans, every time), I’ve decided to fix it myself! I bought the hinges for $90 (eBay), have accumulated enough advice about how to do it from people who have done it, and as soon as the hinges arrive, I’m Coco, Powerbook Repairman! Evidently these hinge breaks are common in the G4 Titanium Powerbooks, so if yours breaks, give me a jingle, and I’ll share my conquest of the hinge!

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My First 39th Year

Oh my aching head. 39 is it. No more mojito-wine-chocolate espresso martini-dinners. Yesterday I started the day of my birth with a visit to Lisa, my beloved hair stylist, for my usual haircut. This time I told her I wanted to let it grow, could she just take a little off, and sure enough, the same haircut. No matter what I tell her, it’s always the same haircut. I don’t have enough forward momentum to seek a new person to break in, so the Lisa Cut it is.

D and I then took in a late morning showing of The Polar Express in 3D on the IMAX screen. It was the same “if only you believe” story that I’ve seen a million times with the same soaring manipulative music. The animation was pretty impressive, but the expressions stiff and wax-museumesque. If I were a kid I would have been terrified. Although, let me tell you, Mindplay, girlfriend, the hair was something, as if each hair had a program written for it. And on that huge screen! I felt like I was in the movie, a flea or something.

So after the movie we called BC to join us for dim sum at Yank Sing, where I warned D and Chris not to eat too much as we were going to have a big dinner, and then took everything off every passing cart. I can’t resist such stimulation on my birthday.

After a very short nap, I watched my favorite Hong Kong lesbian assassin film, Naked Killer on BC’s big screen. Madame Cindy picks up Kitty and recruits her to be an assassin, but Princess, Madame Cindy’s former protege, and Baby, Princess’ new protege, are hired by the Japanese government to exterminate Cindy, but Princess becomes insanely jealous of Madame Cindy’s interest in Kitty and must kill her, too. Lots of bullets and scissors in testicles, at least one sliced salame, tons of simulated lesbian action, shower death scenes, swimming pool death scenes followed by gasping girl-on-girl action in bloody water, and hats as weapons of mass destruction. It’s the best movie ever made.

So then off to The Last Supper Club with Peter and Luis, Emily and Tim, Big Chris and D. Peter and Luis turned me on to what promises to be a new obsession–obscure post-WWII German studio pottery. We laughed and ate lots of yummy food, and drank not really that much, but the chocolate espresso martini thing at the end was like a delicious time bomb. I woke up at 4 completely anxious about the end of my thirties and how career anxiety has overtaken my relationship obsessions and D not being interested in anything but me and how I’m going to fit everybody at the table for Thanksgiving and when is my glass kettle going to arrive. And then, just like yesterday, the sun came up and it was all over.

Here’s a (very long) picture of the drunk and tired gang. Clicca qui.

So the birthday week continues… off to the opera tomorrow night.

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Stuffed

I just heard from Wendy, my high school girlfriend. (She had the hairiest forearms.) Our 20th high school reunion is coming up at the end of the month. I haven’t seen most of those people in 20 years, as I moved to San Francisco three days after graduation. There were only 30 or so people in my graduating class, and I received this enthusiastic note from the organizers saying that they had gotten in touch with HALF of our graduating class. It looks like it’s going to be a pretty intimate affair, but that’s what my high school experience was. My school was called RLC, and the organizers, Rita, Liz, and Amy, were known as RLA–still buddies after 20 years and still living in Birmingham. So I’ll be in Alabamie from August 26-Sept 1, Birminghamians, so mark your calendars. I’m totally excited about seeing JL again. He’s living at home again after living as a hustler and drug dealer in LA. He called me a few months ago, laughing, about his recent felony conviction for dealing crystal meth. “James, you can’t vote, you idiot.” He’s one of my favorite people–in high school he wore feathered earrings and eyeliner (this was in the heart of Dixie, mind you), and was so confident and secure and out that everybody respected him. We got our ears pierced together, that is, at the same time, forging notes from our parents saying it was okay. This was way before it was cool–we were trailblazers. He went on to become the wigmaster of a theatrical group in Santa Maria (there’s a song) prior to his LA downfall. More on the rest of the gang later in the month.

Last night Neel came up from downstairs, Dave up the hill, and BC down the hill, for dinner. I cooked while running Norton Utilities on my recently crashed computer (still running–20 hours later), so I just kept making dishes. Poor guys, I really stuffed them. They pleaded for me to drop the salad dish, so I obliged. The menu: melon and prosciutto; a salad of cannellini beans, onions, and tuna; shrimp risotto; green salad with feta and grapefruit (dropped); and for dessert a fresh fruit tart, and limoncello. The theme was supposed to be seafood, so I told them that the prosciutto was seapig. A fine evening with fine fellows.

What a beautiful day–enjoy it folks.

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Gnocchi

Victor and Davide  were over for gnocchi with pesto and apple pie tonight. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it was going to be to create a dinner for the specific palates and dispositions of my dear guests. I am so in awe of Victor’s beard. It’s like Antarctica was moved to the center of the globe, hanging from North America’s chin. Victor and Davide are great to watch together, Victor very relaxed and bubbly, Davide all fireworks from the small amount of alcohol in his skinny skateboarder dude body. Davide is moving in a few days, only a few blocks away really, but I’m going to miss him sitting all day in my kitchen with his laptop, or running stupid errands with me. It’s like having an Italian journalism major pet who talks about love and music instead of barking or peeing on my rugs.

Earlier today we went to Berkeley to look at vintage glasses with Emily, and had sandwiches and goodies at Fanny’s Cafe. Emily’s working on some new gouaches on paper that are totally dynamite and totally Emily, each work 2-sided, layers on layers of camouflaging and symbols or architectural allusions obliterating the previously and meticulously applied imagery. Sometimes her process of recording and then transforming is completely inaccessible, at other times you see it peeking through, but never banging you on the head. There’s so much intelligence and experience in her work. Davide wanted to go to IKEA to look at beds, so I tagged along through the awful maze. I really can’t go there again. The store’s the size of a New England state. I get all nervous and sweaty not knowing which way is west or how far away the exit is, or even if there is one.

I’ll be posting some big news on Saturday.

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It’s Tuesday Already?

Sunday was such a beautiful day–“Let’s go to the beach!” I impulsively yelled at Davide. So we made our way to the chilly, foggy, almost completely empty Black Sand Beach in the Marin Headlands, the fog occasionally parting to reveal the sun-baked city across the bay. The couple next to us performed their rendition of a Live Male-Female Love Act–start to finish in like, 10 minutes. I could see fascination, horror, and lust register simultaneously on Davide’s shivering face. The tattooed goose flesh and legs waving in the air were the perfect backdrop to our discussion of love, film, and our problem with the supposed disjunction between reality and fantasy.

That night I went to Peter and Luis’ for another of Luis’ extraordinary dinners. Peter and I sat in front of the TV, watching Six Feet Under as Luis fed us 2 plates each of pasta with a buffalo and venison Bolognese, green salad, and then, really, the best bread pudding that I have ever had. I’m starting to cry thinking of it. Using bread from Tartine, he sliced the bread and placed it in the pan in such a way as to retain the loaf shape, and then served it that way, so that the bottom was all custardy and the top crispy. Please help me think of a way to evict Albie downstairs so that I can have Luis live and cook for me me only me. My stomach hasn’t stopped singing since Sunday night, some vaguely familiar Neopolitan love song.

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Escape From San Francisco

BC and I have escaped to the wild Russian River, to an Argento-esque setting in the windy woods, on the muddy river. Last night we shared a frighteningly caloric dinner in Duncan’s Mills, at the aptly named Cape Fear Cafe. Perhaps we shouldn’t have downed the bag of chips and beers before winding our way down the road to the restaurant. I started with oysters, which were some mutant variety probably used in a 50’s sci-fi film in which they take over the bodies of the inhabitants of some small town like the one we’re staying in. This was followed by a salad, which wasn’t mentioned on the menu, but was a delicious tower of mixed greens, set in a moat of vinaigrette, and crowned with a bushel of cranberries and the cheese of a small goat herd. I was stuffed at this point. And then came the entree, scallops covered in a reduction of pernod and cream, way too thick, way too rich, with potatoes that tasted of some sort of cheese, oh no, please somebody get me outta here, and thank the lord up in heaven, some broccoli. When the waiter asked if we wanted dessert, I almost threw up on him, but some inner voice with a green spinning head asked to see them, and they looked great. Go there for dessert, folks, but be forewarned: don’t eat the bag of chips before, and don’t get an appetizer.

We’re deciding which way to bond with Mother Earth today–mud baths or wine tasting? Both? The beach? Hiking? Bulimia?